iOpinion of Tufte

The informational video by Edward Tufte on the iPhone interface design is, in my own opinion, very lacking. He tells us what should be done with the iPhone interface with a shoddy argument and a superior attitude. His opinion on the market page app was that he found it too cartoon-y, holding bright colors and zebra strips. His preferred page was this static image of line graphs. Line graphs are very stimulating to me, i’d love to look at them everyday, just kidding. He seems to be forgetting that most of america is glancing at their phones within a couple seconds, they need the high contrasted colors to separate information easily to gather the most important quickly and effeciently. The “zebra” strips are to best let the eye separate information to make it easier to delineate one line from the other. His flat textbook style graphic left me wanting….I would not want to look at that everyday when checking the market page. As a user of the market page myself, I can say honestly that I would not want to look at that nor award it any kind of efficient label.

Then his whole tirade on the weather application was also unfounded. I don’t think he understands that the average user of the iPhone is ON-THE-GO! His weather page is chock full of information and details. I would not be able upon a 10 second glance be able to ascertain any kind of important information. I would have to stare intently to find the information I want, who has time for that in this world. His whole “to clarify, add detail” is also fundamentally flawed. As a designer you have to understand what is more important and filter it to its most bare necessities to capture the consumer. CLUTTER, it is a actual design problem. And his take seems to be add more clutter to give a clearer idea, but in my opinion, a skilled designer can clarify with as little detail as possible.

The only concession I would make to him would be that I would like to know that information but I would rather see his page on a secondary page. For example, The weather screen that we know and love would be the first thing we see and if I had time or wanted to know I could click on that day and be able to access alll that information then. I will also concede that the bottom bar when accessing the internet takes up 10% of the page and should be transparent. But I find his “fixes” to be fundamentally flawed and he needs to take consumer usability, real-life usability into consideration.